Italian researches have excavated the sekeleton of a 4 mn year old whale in the Tuscan countryside.

It dates to the Pliocene epoch.

Government may not acquire land for SEZs

With land acquisition becoming very tricky for the government, the UPA government is thinking of staying away from the land acquisition process and also toying with the idea of reducing the land requirements for the SEZs.There is a contradiction in this intention.When land acquisition becomes a private issue between land owners and SEZ promoters, the government cannot keep a cap on the land being acquired.

As per the existing system, state governments invoke the archaic 1894 Land Acquisition Act to help SEZ promoters acquire land.The Act empowers state governments to notify any land for acquisition for the purpose it deems fit.Many state governments went a step further and used Section 4(1) of the Act to certify SEZ a ‘public cause’ and went ahead with land acquisition which invited the wrath of land owners.As a practice, Section 4(1) is normally used when the state needs land for projects like dams and airports.

India’s bill for international financial services purchase

It is about $13 bn in 2005 and is expected to be in the range of $50 to $70 bn by 2015.

These figures are given by the high level committee headed by Percy Mistry looking into the issue of making Mumbai an international financial centre.

National Maritime Day

5th April is celebrated as the National Maritime Day.It was on this day in 1919 that India’s first merchant vessel “SS Loyalty” commenced its maiden voyage from Mumbai to London.

CMDs of banks

A couple of days ago, some of you were asking me as to why is that two important posts of the Chairman and Managing Director are combined into a single post and given to only one person in our banking sector/PSUs.We have some more info coming our way in this regard in today’s paper.

In nationalized banks, the post of CMD is a merged post.There is no separate MD.

But in all new private sector banks, the posts are separated as Chairman and CEO.Currently none of the private banks (save UTI Bank, which has an IAS officer as the CMD) have a CMD.Even in the case of UTI Bank, the RBI has put its foot down and said there should be two separate posts.In the case of foreign banks, the post of Chairman is only advisory position.

This separation of the posts is done in line with the Ganguly committee report on corporate governance and international best practices.

Slowdown in US economy and how it impacts other countries?

Sometime back I was answering some of your queries as to how a bad year for US economic growth is going to adversely impact India and perhaps the world at large.Take a look at today’s “Simply Speaking” column (in Economic Times) written by Arnav Pandya.I couldn’t find this piece on the web edition.You are on your own in reading it in the regular/conventional print edition.It appeared on page 17.It is very good.Read it once.

Ever heard of YLD?

It is yellow leaf disease and it afflicts the sugarcane crop.Affected sugarcane crops exhibit a characteristic yellowing of leaves.Usually the disease is noticed as yellowish midrib on three to five leaves from the top.

The disease results in loss of vigour to the sugarcane crops and the crop dies prematurely.

Cricket

Greg Chappell resigned as India’s cricket coach.

And Subhash Chandra of ZEE TV announced a Kerry Packer series look-alike for the Indian cricket.Let us see where this will lead India’s position in this sport.